


The Wake Up Call

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Dean Winchester Takes Care of Castiel, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Mute Castiel (Supernatural), Scared Castiel (Supernatural), Scared Dean Winchester, Traumatised Castiel, showering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:58:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dean almost lost Cas today.As he tries to care for the angel, his angel, the shock of it pushes him to finally reach where he and Cas were always meant to be.





	The Wake Up Call

**Author's Note:**

> What happens to Cas is off screen, so to speak, but the close call basically puts him into shock, and I don’t think Dean’s too far behind.

The lights in the bathroom come on automatically, just proving that while they were dicks, in a lot of things the Men of Letters were ahead of their time.

Dean’s grateful for it. He doesn’t want to take his hands off Cas, doesn’t want anything holding him up from stripping off his sodden clothes, dumping them in the laundry hamper, and then guiding him under the shower head.

Sam’s body wash is sitting on one of the small metal steel shelves. Dean grabs it and pours near half the bottle into his hands.

“Cas,” he says.

The angel doesn’t look at him; he hasn’t made eye contact, hasn’t said a word, since the cabin, and that scares Dean more than he’s prepared to admit even to himself.

But then the air around Cas seems to swell, fill with the kind of charge that precedes a storm.

Dean moves back just as much as he has to so that Cas’s wings can come through to their plane of existence, which as it turns out isn’t much.

The wings, black, heavy, sodden, stay tucked up tight against the angel’s back as if they or he are too scared of what might happen next.

Fuck Ketch, Dean thinks. Fuck him all the way to Hell. He hopes whatever’s left of the hierarchy down there tears the bastard apart, puts him back together, then starts all over again.

But then he pushes that train of thought away. He needs to be calm, gentle, here, needs to reassure Cas if he’s going to be able to do this.

“It’s okay,” he says, and very carefully strokes down one of the wings with the barest touch of his fingertips. “Cas, I just want to help. We’ve gotta clean this stuff off you, right?”

He thinks, after a moment, he sees a tiny, jerky motion that might be a nod.

“Okay. Can you stretch out your wing for me?”

He gets nothing else, but Cas doesn’t resist when he carefully takes hold of the left wing and gently extends it so he can get full access to each and every feather.

There doesn’t seem to be a single one not glistening with oil, and the air around them turns heady and fragrant with the smell of it.

Dean hates it.

It almost took Cas from them, today.

Ketch almost took Cas from them.

And Cas would have died screaming, flames licking their way over his body, burning through his skin and flesh and bones, and straight down to his Grace, and they wouldn’t have stopped there.

He has to remind himself it didn’t happen.

He has a living, breathing, safe angel in front of him. One that’s shaken to the point of shock, of barely being able to function, but Dean can fix all of that.

He has to fix the wings first, though, because they got it the worst.

It takes all of Sam’s body wash, and his shampoo, and even the dirt cheap stuff Dean uses himself, as a last resort, because it’s good enough for him but not for his angel, before he’s satisfied that every trace of the oil is gone from Cas’s wings.

And though it’s crossing a boundary that exists, even if neither of them consciously set it or even acknowledge it, Dean washes the rest of him too. Makes sure not even a drop of the oil lingers on the angel, not on his wings, not on his hair, not on his skin.

Somewhere in all of that, his lips find Cas’s, and it’s the most innocent kiss Dean has ever given anyone, but it’s still enough to nearly bring him to his knees.

He almost breaks when he hears the broken off sob that Cas tries badly to hide, and then he’s tugging the angel into his arms, letting the water rinse off the last remnants of what nearly killed him.

Dean doesn’t know how long they stand there, but the water’s turned cold and he’s shivering before Cas finally, finally, looks at him, eyes wide and scared and desperate.

That’s when he kisses Dean back.


End file.
